


Nightmares

by bexcj



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Angst, Fluff, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-23
Updated: 2015-09-23
Packaged: 2018-04-23 02:04:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4858985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bexcj/pseuds/bexcj
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aaron's been having nightmares about Katie, but it turns out he isn't the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares

Aaron's eyes flutter open and he huffs, staring at his small alarm clock which reads a repulsive time of 4:32am. It's not unusual for him to wake up in the middle of the night for whatever reason, but he's not one for being able to get back to sleep easily and so he swings his legs around to sit up at the side of the bed, assuming this is probably the start of his day. He brings his hands up to his eyes and rubs them harshly before standing up, but as he turns to the door, something startles him so much he falls back down onto the mattress. 

She's lying on his bedroom floor covered in dust and shards of glass. Her arms are by her sides and her eyes are open, though completely lifeless. Aaron stares at her with his eyes wide, a shaky hand coming up to clasp his mouth at the sight of her. How is she here? Why?

He tries to call her name but he can hardly breathe, let alone speak. He swallows and tries again. "Katie," he manages to get it out though it's hoarse and probably inaudible. "Katie," It's clearer now, and he's standing up again to move closer to her body. He walks slowly towards her, and when he's close enough he kneels down so his head is near hers. 

"Katie? Katie..." His lower lip trembles and the tears start to fall freely from his eyes. It's too vivid to be a dream. She's right in front of him just like she was before, so pale, so dead. 

She gasps then, and it's so loud it almost bursts Aaron's ear drums. He jumps out of his skin which is what wakes him up.

He sits up in the bed, gasping for air. He's shaking and crying, his palms sticky from sweating so much. He can't bear to look to the floor where she had been laying a few minutes ago. He turns his head to the clock which instead reads an earlier 1:49am. Light from a lamppost is streaming through the window, shining on one of his trusted black hoodies. He gets out of bed then, throwing the jacket on, along with a pair of joggers and trainers before getting out of his bedroom as quickly as his feet will take him.

He just wants to run anywhere. Anywhere that isn't the pub or Emmerdale at all, really, but he knows that's unreasonable at this time of night so instead he goes to the scrapyard. It isn't the best of places, but it's somewhere relatively far away and it'll do for now. When Aaron gets there, he opens the door of the portakabin to find his seat filled by a sleeping Robert Sugden. 

Aaron sighs to himself, walking over to the other chair on the opposite side of the room and slumping into it. His back will probably ache tomorrow but whatever, he thinks. He stares at Robert, his head filling to the brim with different questions he'll ask him in the morning. Why is he here? 

Aaron falls asleep whilst appreciating how peaceful Robert looks, meaning he falls asleep quite happy even though he'll never admit to it.

He opens his eyes and immediately gasps as his eyes lock with hers. She still looks dead, covered in dust like she usually is and white as paper, but she's standing up this time, leaning over Robert's sleeping body. There's something in her hands that Aaron can't quite make out because he's too busy staring into her transparent eyes, but when his own flick down and it comes into focus, he sees it's a glass panel. 

He goes to get up but finds he's stuck in the chair, and no matter how much he tries to break free it seems impossible. He looks back up at her, but she's not looking at him anymore. She's looking down at Robert, and then lifts the panel high above his head. Aaron shouts and screams at her to stop, screams Robert's name over and over again but it doesn't make a difference. "Katie, don't hurt him! Robert get up! Get up! Please get up -" The panel falls from her hands, but Aaron gets ripped away before he can see it land. 

"Aaron?" He exhales like he's been holding it in for hours and lets more air fill his lungs until it hurts to breathe anymore. He's being held up by Robert's arms on his shoulders, clinging onto them tightly as if it had been the other man with the nightmare. Aaron soon calms down enough for Robert to release his grip slightly.

When their eyes connect, Robert looks so panicked and stressed it's almost hard for Aaron to keep looking. "You alright?" Robert whispers.

Aaron nods tiredly. "You?" He replies, genuinely concerned, but Robert only laughs. 

"I'm fine. Was having a nice sleep actually, before you woke me up shouting. Thought it was a burglar." Aaron would laugh if he wasn't so drained, but the corners of his mouth twitch upwards instead, which is enough. 

Robert's hand moves down to Aaron's forearm and he strokes it with the pad of his thumb. "I thought it was just me." 

Aaron's brows knit together. "What?"

"The nightmares." He explains. "I didn't think you got them as well." Aaron just nods. 

"That's why I was in here." Robert continues. "I didn't think she'd be able to haunt me if I was somewhere else." 

Aaron squeezes his eyes shut, trying to repress the flashbacks of the nightmare. His hand grabs onto his arm, on top of where Robert's hand already is. 

"What did she do to you?" Robert's voice is so soft and gentle, almost like a small child, and it's weirdly comforting to Aaron right now. It means so much that Robert actually understands this. It makes Aaron feel less insane.

"Not me," Aaron corrects him. "You."

Robert nods. "Thought so, since you were calling my name in your sleep." 

A small blush creeps over Aaron's cheeks and he turns away, biting at his lower lip. Robert sighs, getting up from his position on the floor and heading towards the door of the portakabin. He turns his head to Aaron and gestures for him to follow. Aaron opens his mouth to question it, but holds back and does as he's told.

It's weird being with Robert like this after so long. They'd kept their distance for a few months now even though they were civil, because it was easier for both of them to keep apart rather than endure the flashbacks of everything that went wrong. Aaron managed to contain his feelings for the other man, but they /are/ still there, nagging at him every so often.

They walk for about 20 minutes in comfortable silence, and Aaron soon realises when they're at the quarry. He stops walking, shaking his head. "What've you brought us here for?" 

Robert turns around. "So you can clear your head. Come on," He continues walking forward, and even though it kills Aaron to be anywhere near this place, he follows. 

They stop at the edge and Robert sits down, his feet hanging down towards the water. It makes Aaron's legs tremble because he's actually scared of heights a little bit (not that he'll ever tell anyone), but he slowly does the same, and it's actually exhilarating once he's there.

"I've been here a lot since that night." Robert admits. Aaron looks at him sadly, thinking about how messed up the man really is and thinking about how similar they are. "I came here most nights after I'd been discharged because I'd have nightmares every night about being shot again." 

Aaron turns away, remembering the traumatizing few months Robert had endured after Andy found out about Katie. Being shot shook him up a lot and so he was a quiet face in the village now, compared to the loud, proud asshole he'd been beforehand. Aaron truly believes he deserved what happened to him, though, because he's a much better person for it even though he's messed up in the head. 

"I don't get those so much now, but Katie always comes back, causing all sorts of grief in my subconscious. I should've expected that she'd haunt the life out of me, really." It's weird hearing Robert talk about it like this, but Aaron needs it. 

"Coming here, it doesn't take it away but it does help. I remembered when you said you cleared your head on that night, so I thought I'd give it a go. I owe it to you really, that I can even cope with this stuff." Aaron turns to him and their eyes lock. He can see the emptiness in Robert's and it almost kills him. It's in that moment that everything Aaron had managed to contain seeps back into his body, filling him up with the love he'd locked away since the lodge. 

"You've been alright though, apart from the nightmares?" Robert's voice snaps Aaron back into reality. He nods his head hesitantly, because he has been alright really, the best he's been in a long time, but it hasn't taken away from how much of a void he feels inside himself since they broke up. 

They get back to the scrapyard a couple hours later, after talking about all the nightmares they'd had and comparing them, even laughing about some of them. A weight feels lifted off Aaron's shoulders and he's almost smiling by the time they sit down in the portakabin.

"One of the nurses in hospital tried to give me this ice cream to eat, right," Robert explains, smiling to himself as he does. "But it was mint and I hate mint, so I ended up telling her I was allergic to ice cream which led to a half an hour rant about how I'm 'missing out on the great pleasures of life' and they need to 'find a cure'. It was honestly so embarrassing." 

"Serves you right," Aaron huffs out a laugh. "Why didn't you just say you were lactose intolerant?"

"I wasn't really thinking, was I? I had to make up something on the spot otherwise I would've had to eat it!" Robert visibly shudders at the memory, causing Aaron to laugh again. 

He catches Robert staring at him after that. "It's nice to hear you laugh," he says softly. Aaron turns away, embarrassed. "Thanks?"

"No, I mean it." Robert continues. "When you were dreaming earlier I'd never seen anything like it. It wasn't the Aaron I knew. It was...terrifying." 

It's then that Aaron knows Robert hasn't stopped loving him. He feels worry in the same way Aaron does about him. When Robert was shot, Aaron almost died out of concern and worry despite his lack of care in front of the others. It didn't help that it overlapped with Jackson's accident and Aaron felt like he was having a serious case of dejà vu, but he was terrified of losing Robert even though he was supposed to be hating him, which was also when he realised he could never hate him. Not really. 

"Thanks, but I'm not really your concern anymore, am I? Those days are long gone." It hurts, but Aaron means what he says. It would wreck everything if they were to rekindle their relationship. It would hijack the balance they'd managed to create and Aaron can't afford to ruin his own life again. The pain intensifies as Robert leans in closer so their faces aren't that far apart.

"You're always my concern." 

Their lips smash together then, and it feels like coming up from the water after nearly drowning. Aaron lets himself melt into it, wrapping his arms around Robert's waist and pulling him as close as biology will let them. Robert's just as willing, his hands in Aaron's hair, on his neck and cupping his cheeks. "I missed this so much." The older man breathes between the kisses.

"We can't," Aaron whispers on Robert's lips before pulling away after coming to his senses. "I can't do this again." He steps backwards, breathing heavily. Robert goes to move forward but Aaron steps back again, shaking his head.

"Aaron, I-" Robert tries, but he doesn't know what to say so lets it fade. Aaron just turns away. He can't do this. He won't do this.

Robert tries again. "The quarry isn't the best cure for my nightmares." He admits. Aaron knits his brows and turns back to him. "What?"

"It's you." Robert continues. "Those months after Katie, when me and you got it back on, those were the only times I didn't get any nightmares. None at all. You're my cure...and I'm yours." 

Aaron shakes his head again in denial, biting at his lip. Though as much as he doesn't want to admit it, Robert's right. "What does it matter anyway?"

"We're both messed up and you know it. I'm not saying we can fix each other, but we can help ease it, can't we? It's never gonna go away but we can keep it at bay for a bit. Please, Aaron." Robert pleads. His voice is so small, so desperate. "Just once."

Aaron sighs in defeat, and they walk to Robert's temporary home as the sky begins to lighten. They walk into the tiny bedroom, which is freezing from the lack of heating so they don't take their clothes off before climbing into the bed. Robert wraps an arm around Aaron's waist and cuddles into him slightly. Aaron wants to pull away but he doesn't, and he convinces himself it's because he needs the warmth (even though he knows that's not true). 

"Night," Robert yawns, and within a couple of minutes he's snoring softly. Aaron can't help but smile, and when he lets himself relax into it, he's soon asleep too. 

Katie doesn't visit him that night, or the next three nights when they sleep together. Aaron soon learns that she can't affect them when they're together, maybe because their broken pieces temporarily piece together so she has no way to get through.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time i've uploaded to AO3 so I'm a tiny bit nervous hahahaha, hope u enjoyed and leave kudos?? idk


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